Induction 5.7
-=≡SƧ≡=-
Theo hadn't thought things through.
He slowly placed the small teacup back on the tray, his gauntlets clutching the delicate handle as gently as he could manage. The plates of his rebuilt carapace slid smoothly over each other as he moved, sealed and strong.
"I'm sorry Mrs. Clements, I don't think I can open my helmet without showing too much of my face."
The tiny woman hovering with a teapot, hair gray despite a relatively fresh face, rushed to apologize. "Oh no, I'm sorry dear, I just assumed! When Dauntless was here, his mask folded back, you see."
"Dauntless?" Theo was surprised the Protectorate had expended a heavy-hitting cape to do the follow-up on the disappearance. Maybe they were so overstretched only the most mobile could be sent up here to the suburbs of the North End.
"Yes. He was very sweet. He's the one who told us you were involved, had tried to help. The PRT agent was so cross with him saying that. I don't think Austin would have let you in otherwise." Mrs. Clement's words were fragile, hiding pain.
"No." Mr. Clements agreed from his position on the other sofa as he glared at Theo. He was much shorter than Theo would be even out of the carapace, but his thick-calloused hands were clenched as if he wanted to tear something apart. "You were the last one to talk to her."
"Only via text, sir. I turned those logs over to the Protectorate, did they show—"
"Yes," the man interrupted, "why are you here then?"
Theo hesitated as he tried to be persuasive, "I've learned a bit more, and investigated some leads. It would be good to know more about your daughter's recent past. Months past I mean, if anything changed that fits in with my timeline."
Dropping by had seemed a good idea when the trail of communications equipment on rooftops had gone cold.
Mrs. Clements smiled weakly, "I'm glad your spending time on—"
"Why aren't you with the Protectorate? Work together! If you want to be a detective, get the damn law behind you!" Mr. Clements fumed.
It was a fair question Theo thought, and he hated how smoothly the excuse came, as easy as one of Max's lies. "I apologize, sir. But my personal situation makes a full-time job difficult. The Protectorate acknowledges and supports independent heroes, but naturally is careful about sharing sensitive civilian information. I work with them as much as I can."
The angry father grunted dismissively.
"Madison's been stressed for months, since April. She used to dress so prettily, make-up every day, but recently it's been like she's in hiding." Mrs. Clements said in a small voice.
Mr. Clements cast his eyes down guilty, "I used to be mad at her for wasting the hot water, I was glad when she skipped morning showers."
"It started when her best friend was home invaded," Mrs. Clements continued, anxiously rearranging the plate of cookies, "things were different for Madison in school after that, Emma wasn't the same. Crime is one thing up at this end of town, but capes attacking your home?"
"A cape attack?" Theo hadn't heard anything, but they were at the other end of the city from his usual patrol route.
"Invisible," Mr. Clements barked, "and strong. They beat Alan and took him and Emma, dumped them in the woods. Old Empire scare tactic, that— something from Allfathers day. I've seen it done."
Theo did know that tactic, the target was meant to think of all the other places in the woods they could have been left instead; the rumored torture cabins or just an unmarked grave. Terrified by the implication, and the cops would dawdle on reports of a temporary abduction in the way they wouldn't for murder. A methodology to use on business owners hesitant on paying protection. Something about the phrasing Mr. Clements had used bothered Theo though.
He wasn't going to let it slide. "Seen it, sir?"
The man rubs his hands together nervously, "I wasn't a member, but I had friends, everyone did when the Empire rose up. Something on the street goes down and it's easy to stand aside when you've got a young family to care for. But as you get older, you know it's not the people the Empire blames who are making this city what it is. Your kid has black friends and they're good kids too. I like to think I wouldn't stand aside no more."
"I understand," Theo replied noncommittally.
Mr. Clements looked up, and tried to match his gaze to the vizor on Theo's headpiece, "Do you think it's the Empire that took our little girl?"
"Yes, or their associates," Theo didn't want to sugarcoat things, but his heart hurt at Mrs. Clements' little broken gasp.
"Of course, you go after them, that's your thing. Why'd you be fucking here otherwise?" Mr. Clements swore.
"I try to help those I can," Theo said but didn't think it sounded very reassuring. He pressed on. "Aside from this incident with Emma…"
"Barnes. They've moved out of state."
"I see." Unfortunate that Theo wouldn't have a chance to question them, but he could barely cross the city from the Batra's house. "Aside from that, were there any notable changes in Madison's behavior?"
The Clements look at each other, and Mrs. Clements reaches out a dainty hand that Mr. Clements squeezes reassuringly. The woman continues. "In the last few months, she started buying and selling things online, all cape memorabilia, bits of old costumes, and the like."
"We thought it was good at first," Mr. Clements added, "she was picking up some of her older sister's drive—they're in New York now, too ambitious for the Bay."
"Madison was the baby, always following them around doing whatever scheme they wanted to do. It was good to see her do something on her own." Mrs. Clements smiled painfully. "But it meant she just spent more time in her room, on that damn computer."
"Did the PRT take the computer, Ma'am?" Theo's mood fell as the woman nodded. He hadn't gained many additional clues today. He'd already known the kidnapped girl was terminally online; her New Wave fan blogs were still updating with what must be scheduled content.
Madison's friend being attacked by an invisible cape was new to him. Only one stranger in the city who he knew had Empire ties: Faultline's girl in white. The mercenaries had a reputation for being non-lethal, but an intimidation mission sounded right up their alley.
Theo knew Swallowtail could hide other people too. You only had to read between the lines of the briefing the PRT had issued after the last battle against the Butcher. Had they sent her out with a crew of thugs like Max had done with Othala, making a threat with parahuman power without diverting too many actual capes? Theo imagined a bored mercenary counting money while a squad of empowered goons broke into an undefended house. Melodramatic, but what sort of person would choose to work for the Nazis when they had any other options? It filled him with a hard, chilly contempt.
Mrs. Clements' eyes had been watering all through the conversation, and she finally burst into tears at Theo's silence. "I just want my little girl back."
Theo shifted uncomfortably within the bulk of his carapace. His costume was singularly unsuited to be reassuring, an impassive and unemotional shell. He didn't know what to say.
"We all do, Helena," the anger in Mr. Clements' voice had cooled and saddened, "did this help?"
It took an awkward moment before Theo realized the latter had been directed at him. The words for this at least came more easily, and he tried to make his voice resolute. "I know more than I used to, thank you. I can't promise success, but I'm not going to stop looking."
It didn't staunch Mrs. Clements' tears, but her husband nodded grimly. "Good. If that's all, we've got to get to Church."
"I don't want to see anyone right now, Austin," Mrs. Clements sobbed.
Theo knew they didn't need voyeurs to their pain and made a quiet exit.
-=≡SƧ≡=-
Sunday morning was one of the better times for Theo's search. There were fewer people around to disturb as he crisscrossed the North End and the Docks, moving from alley to alley and roof to roof. Fewer vehicles on the roads muddling the spoor of his target's wheels.
He was in the warehouse district north of Archer's Bridge when a series of messages popped up on the small screen in the corner of his headpiece, green text bouncing up the interior darkness.
Peg: Masada turn off your SIM card!!!!
Peg: You're moving like a cape!!!!!!
Peg: Also if you got ideas for coolants, I've got parts that turn out to be cruddy crapola. Need to compensate. Message me.
Peg: ON A PROXY!
Peg: You're moving like a cape!!!!!!
Peg: Also if you got ideas for coolants, I've got parts that turn out to be cruddy crapola. Need to compensate. Message me.
Peg: ON A PROXY!
Theo winced and crouched behind a dumpster to crack the seal of his headpiece. He needed access to adjust things; the new carapace had more electronics in it to better control the sealing and manage the carbon dioxide scrubber and the oxygen pump. If Fog tried to get inside again, Geoff would be in for an unpleasant surprise. Extra sensors and a repurposed security camera had been easy enough, but when he'd tried again to build mechanical actuators based on an internet search, his power had refused to cooperate and the maximum weight was still limited by his muscle power. That blunder had left him without the time to work out some bugs and make all the controls properly ergonomic.
Once his phone's tracking was disabled, Theo scaled the alley wall, gauntlet clamps fusing and unfusing with the brickwork. The warning from Epeios and his…colleagues was welcome, as Theo had no doubts about the capability of whoever was building the sensor stations across the city, but there would surely be a favor asked in return one day.
But maybe that was good? To have relationships with other tinkers, have collaboration and conversation. He was staying away from the PRT, but could he be doing more with official backing and official resources?
Was he arrogant to think he could handle things untrained and unsupported?
Ding ding
The street he was passing over was nearly deserted, but one or more parked cars had been spreading his tracking pigment. Theo flung himself flat against the roof, mimic cloak flexing to match the tarry material. This close to a potential threat, he couldn't be too careful.
Minutes passed as Theo lay prone, and he distracted himself by thinking through his brief glimpse of the prospective vehicles. As typical for this part of town, none of them were clean, undented, or younger than five years old. Not one of them has the swagger of a supervillain's transport, the bulk of a vehicle intended for action, or even the gleam of someone who cared for their car, and it left him at something of a loss.
Disappointed with himself, Theo slowly crept up the roof till his back was pressed against the crumbling brick stack of an unused chimney. He stood up, clamps on his boots fused with the rooftop, and took a better look into the street four stories below. Even on a second look, none of the cars appeared to have come from the well-heeled environs of Jenness Beach, despite the continued pinging of his sniffer.
Did he trust his intuition or his tech?
An easy question. Theo settled into a crouch to wait, locking his armor in a comfortable position. Thumbing on the camera in his helmet to watch the scene he considered his tactics. If Faultline was here he'd run—It'd be weeks before he could build a new fusion rifle and every other tool he had worked with inorganic matter. Labyrinth would be an even worse matchup without energy blasts or enhanced movement. The rest though, he had a decent chance of taking by surprise and locking them in place, and his new carapace should be proofed against any of the monstrous capes' chemical attacks.
Forty minutes later, his patience was rewarded.
A willowy woman or girl with a waist-length cascade of black curly hair obscuring her features walked down the street with the dangerous slowness of a praying mantis; so much predatory care in an innocuous walk set Theo's instincts blaring. Paying close attention to the screen, he could see smears and white voids that flickered into brief microsecond existences behind her like an entourage of ghosts.
She reached one of the smaller parked cars and put something on the back seat, and then the car sagged on its wheelbase like someone else had gotten in, while she went to the driver's door. Only two people in the city could make things invisible, and this woman didn't look like Squealer.
As he heard the engine starting, Theo rushed to the edge of the roof and checked the street for bystanders or other traffic. It was empty. It was time.
He dialed the slag rifle to one of its medium settings and aimed a high path that would see the payload drop nearly straight down. The reservoir on his back purred as it pumped tonnes of plural-state matter down into the weapon.
He pulled the trigger.
It was a perfect shot, the moving car trapped by the spreading sphere of asphalt but not entombed by it. Theo was running before it had even finished setting, as he barreled along the rooftop to get a view of the exposed back of the vehicle. His heart pounded in his chest as he waited for the sphere to just vanish in a crackle of Faultline's power, the formidable mercenary striding out in full costume…
It didn't happen. Theo's mental calculus shifted: one or two of the mercenaries plus Swallowtail then. They might panic, or they might try to escape. He thumbed on his alert signal, set to the frequency the Protectorate gives to all the independent heroes, just as he got far enough up the street to see the rear of the car.
The back window was kicked out. He hadn't heard it break—
Something crested the lip of the roof and charged at him; a blur, a distortion, an absence in the world that hurt to understand the shape of. Terrifying in the obviousness of its occlusion.
Theo took an instinctive half-step back and braced his carapace, locking the joints and fusing the boot clamps with the surface of the roof in the fraction of a second he had before a blow struck the side of his torso.
More rattling strikes fell on him, the hidden cape moved inhumanly quickly and seemed to have more than four limbs. Then a pause and Theo shifted his left arm up into a warding pose, his right gauntlet locked into the slag rifle. The little screen in his helmet just showed a blob of white static.
The blows resumed, the opponent flowing around Theo's bulky limbs as he attempted basic defensive forms, not daring to unlock his feet. Punch, punch, and then the swipe of some fleshy limb preceded a trio of slaps to the headpiece, and Theo's visor was left with gooey orange handprints.
This must have been Newter. His hallucinogens were allegedly potent, but Theo's new carapace had been built to resist Fog's far more intrusive power. Theo'd been shaken by the suddenness of the attack, but now his grim resolve was returning.
Theo released one foot from its material bond with the roof and stepped forward, guard raised.
The hard-to-see blur rolled back out of reach and paused a second, becoming even harder to perceive in its stillness. Theo locked his advancing foot down, and spun the slag-rifle to a wide spray setting, the weapon tilted to keep the action out of the villain's view.
Newter sprung forward all the same, grabbing Theo's gun-arm with what felt like two hands and a foot, and Theo could hear a furious screeching as the villain reached under the cloak to scratch at the hardened plates.
Theo held the weight of the other cape easily enough with his anchored footing, but with rising panic he realized the villain was going for the covered piping connecting the weapon with the plural-matter reservoir. How had he known where they were?
With desperate fury, Theo changed the clamp on his other gauntlet to its dangerous 'bond anything' setting and drove his now-scalding fist into the obscured mass of the villain in the seconds he had before it burnt out. The response was immediate, with a squeal of pain and a spray of thick orange blood, Newter leaped backward, the force of his launch pushing Theo down and shaking him from side to side in the carapace.
Theo's frantic wide-spray shot hit the roof before the villain landed.
Newter didn't jump away from the extruded mass of sticky matter. This was over.
As adrenaline thudded in his ears and his breath whistled in the confines of his armor, Theo applied another layer of entangling matter around the absence in his sight which concealed the villain. A soft crunk and a red light in his helmet screen told him the left gauntlet had burnt itself out. Keeping the slag-rifle trained on the villain, Theo lifted his left arm into view to evaluate the damage.
It was still orange. Had it gone critical? Failed to cool?
It took a second for Theo to realize it was Newter's blood rather than residual heat.
The heat of the fight fled from his mind instantly, Theo didn't want the mercenary to die.
"You should drop the concealment power, I need to evaluate your injury." Theo was surprised at the calmness of his own voice. "Please."
"Do it, Tails." Newter's voice was relaxed. If he was in pain or out of breath, he didn't show it.
There was no transition. Suddenly the orange teenager was just there, easy to see in the bright sunlight. The ballooning slate had trapped his legs and tail, forcing him into an awkward leaning position. He wore nothing other than shorts, which made it easy for Theo to see twin holes burnt into the meat of his shoulder, the arm beneath hanging uselessly.
"You cauterized it on the way in," Newter drawled with amusement, "hurts like hell though, man. Why'd you have to go so fucking hard?"
"Your team of villains can change the landscape; giving you time seems a bad idea."
"Driving while orange isn't a crime, dude." Newter joked, his brilliant white teeth gleaming beneath sclera-less blue eyes. If he was in pain, he didn't show it. "For a guy who hates Nazis, you're sure rocking the skin color profiling."
Theo almost spat his reply, "You work for the Empire—"
He's buying time, Theo suddenly realized. For his crewmates to rescue him? Or for them to escape?
Either was fine; if Swallowtail and the other person in that car wanted to leave he wouldn't be able to follow, and if they planned to attack him he was better off on the security of the rooftop until the PRT arrived.
"Cat got your tongue, Buckethead?" Newter seemed amused, "it's a pity none of my happy fun time juice got into your cracks, sounds like you need to relax."
"I'd rather hear about the nazi group you work for," Theo replied, as he carefully sprayed a second layer of matter to entomb Newter's healthy-looking arm in a pillar of slate.
"Who?" Newter seemed genuinely puzzled or was a great actor.
"The ones behind Medhall, the ones you're helping expand the territory of in Midtown."
"Faultline handles the contracting, man. I'm just a handsome and charismatic wage slave." Newter's grin grew even wider as he spoke.
Someone grabbed the back of Theo's cloak.
As he spun round, arm already raised to guard, he felt the weight of that someone ride along with his cloak as if they were swinging from a tether. The pull was light, lighter than a person should be.
Stranger things began to happen. Starting at his shoulders—where the cloak was anchored on the carapace—his skin turned numb. Goosebumps of panic outran the numbing tide, but in the affected areas he couldn't feel anything. It rose up his neck and his mouth went dry.
Then he couldn't feel his mouth.
Theo stood straight and did the only thing he could think of, squeezing the control that locked the carapace into a stiff statue, each part bonding to the next in an ironclad protective grip.
The power effect reached his eyes, and everything went dark. No, darkness was a pretender to the utter absence of sensation his eyes were receiving. He floated—a solitary mote—in a terrifying endless void. If his heart was pounding in terror, he couldn't feel it.
Wait. He could still feel his left foot. From just below the knee, the power effect ended, like a nearly painted house done by an underpaid craftsman. His sole was hot, the sweat between his toes itchy and irritating.
The sensation was wonderful, and it anchored him through a long minute of silence.
At least it felt like a minute.
The world came back like a light being flicked in a darkened room, an explosion of blue sky and bright sunshine. The scene in front of him was almost comical, as Faultline's red healer seemed to be struggling to free Newter from his imprisoning stone, standing on top of the pillar trapping Newters arm and straining to break it apart.
What wasn't comical was the hoarse voice just outside his headpiece. It was feminine, but low and soft and rough, like sand in velvet, and it didn't sound happy.
"Release Newter." was her urgent demand.
Theo could, and his eyes flickered to his right gauntlet that held the resonance device. A couple of button pushes would collapse the extruded matter, at least while it was still fresh. But these were villains, and the PRT had to be coming. He would endure.
"Sorry ma'am, but no." He said firmly.
"Something in the gauntlet does it? The cylinder with a conic projector?" The words were fast, interrogative.
Theo held his tongue; you should never give thinkers more than you have to.
"Your choice." The voice hissed, and the world switched off again.
His foot wasn't spared this time, and he drifted weightlessly in a yawning gulf of absence.
It would be okay, Theo told himself, I'm used to feeling small.
It was okay, for a minute.
Or was it an hour?
Bubbling helplessness flooded his memory of a throat and he screamed silently for respite—
[Nanoparticle Immolator]: spray of active molecules coats surrounds signal or timer activates burn without need for visual contact also useful for long-distance tracking—
[Reactive Slag Coating]: entrapping paint on carapace draws on reservoir expands into immobilizing gunk on contact with human skin—
The ideas calmed him, half-thought solutions accreting detail, growing into pearls. Bright and clean and there in the darkness, not something the villainous woman could take. Not even Max could take the things in Theo's head. He sorted and mixed and categorized imagined schematics, blueprints holding back the blank void.
Then, just like that, Theo was back on the roof.
In front of him was the pimple of stone that had trapped Newter, but its orange pus had been expelled and the villain was nowhere to be seen. Cracks and chips in the material indicated he'd been freed by brute force and it hadn't been easy. The clock on his interior screen said it had been thirty-eight minutes
Looking down at his arms, Theo was startled. The armor plates were scratched and dented like he'd stuck his hand in a tiger's mouth. No, the dents were too regular, someone had been scratching him with a crowbar, digging into his defense to get at the soft vulnerable boy underneath.
He hadn't felt a thing.
He hadn't felt a thing down there in the darkness.
"You doing alright, Masada?" A woman's voice, but not like her, this was jolly and vibrant. Turning his body he could see the bright red uniform of Challenger glowing in the blinding sunshine. The Protectorate hero's stance was wary, and her colossal axe was raised as if expecting an attack. Had she only just arrived?
Theo let out a long juddering sigh, glad the stiffness of the carapace hid the tremor in his hands.
"No, ma'am. I'm not."
"Want to talk about it?"
He didn't. But his emotions, crushed together in the deepness of the sensory abyss, bubbled and swirled, pushing at his lips to make words tumble loose all the same.
[Dedicated Disbelief Algorithm]: transform feeds highlight breaks absences holes incoming data auto link defenses quick alert power demand high possible coolant—
As the beats of the fight spilled from Theo's lips, Challenger's singular eye narrowed in understanding.
-=≡SƧ≡=-
"It's war."
"Hmm?" I respond to Skeeter, my mind only half on the conversation. The rest of me turns Masada's words over and over again in my head, the secrets of mine he'd poured out to that red-clad Protectorate bitch.
"I'm older in the memory, maybe twelve? There's black smoke behind the mountains, and I know it's from a battle." Skeeter mutters darkly. Sitting cross-legged on the carpet, he is still noticeably pale from expended blood, drained by the demands of both Pegasus' task and the flood of abrasive blood needed to free Newter from the imprisoning stone.
"Not the relaxing dip in the memory pool you hoped?" Newter jokes from the couch. He's lying chest down, with three of Skeeter's blood packs held onto his shoulder with a mass of bandages.
For a moment I consider unblocking Newter's pain receptors to get him to behave, but I refrain. He tried his best and did enough for today. He's not the one who made a bad call and failed.
The memory therapy this evening had been as much for me as it was for Skeeter, a long hour of singular focus on his brain, drowning out the distractions. It was a task I knew I could do—a relief compared to the job of putting my secrets back in the bottle.
Skeeter reached for his now-cold box of noodles rather than answering Newter, deliberately turning his back as he pecked at the simple meal.
"Fuck's sake dude, just making conversation. It was boring as hell watching you two dream," Newter complains.
"Every memory is precious," Skeeter answers, "but yes, it wasn't reassuring. Perhaps it's my tiredness; if I hadn't had to expend an ocean of blood for someone who couldn't dodge a simple spray gun, it might have gone better."
"How was I supposed to know Masada has adjustable nozzles? Scouting isn't my job—"
I tune out their bickering. It made me glad in a way, better they are like this than how they'd been on the drive back to the restaurant. Glowering in yet another stolen car, Newter wincing and scowling as every bump in the road jostled his wounds, Skeeter slumping forward in the passenger seat, drowsy and stupefied. Mel would have been able to get them back on task for sure, but she and one of Julian's men are driving my latest grand theft auto out of town—ostentatiously past the toll cameras—to find a secluded spot to annihilate it with her power.
Newter said something, and Skeeter sighed deeply in response, "What does it say that the Nazi hunter came after us?"
"I don't know," I say. I don't like it at all. Masada's face under his armor had been grim and determined, breaking the unwritten rules and willing to accept the consequences. This wasn't a heat-of-the-moment decision or a scuffle of cops and robbers. He'd been to the restaurant, does he know where we live?
"He operates east of Downtown, he was way outside that today," Skeeter adds.
"Yes," I agree. I'm glad at least one other member of the Crew pays attention to me and Mel's briefings. "But the North End is where the fighting is; Gesellschaft versus Primordial versus the small gangs versus Nonpareil's agents."
Versus us, I leave unsaid.
"Hey, he probably just put the rumors together in a stupid way guys. Got the wrong idea, came after us, lost, and went home." Newter tries to be buoyant as he speaks, but it's difficult in a prone position.
"Did he get the wrong idea? We fight Primordial, then dealers with swastika tattoos take their street corners." Skeeter mutters darkly.
He's not wrong.
"It's just a job, dude." Newter sounds tired. His good arm fumbles on the coffee table for the TV remote until I slide it into his reach.
I go over the scene on the rooftop again. Masada hadn't known; he'd been surprised at what I did to restrain him, but nothing he'd said to the Protectorate indicated he'd put it together. Challenger's expression said it all though; a physically powerful stranger—just like the attack on the PHQ, a cape that could blank people's senses, confuse their minds—just like the Hospital.
"Action? Drama? Rom-com?" Newter says suggestively as he flicks through the channels.
"Put M*A*S*H on," Skeeter answers, and Newter obliges. I'd sat through enough of Skeeter's love for hospital comedies, and cast my scan to check the perimeter again.
"It's okay, Taylor," Newter's voice brings me back, "we won, and if Masada doesn't piss himself at the idea of coming after us again I'll eat my hat."
He's trying to be reassuring, but I disagree. "We're weak, Newter. Mel would have made the difference, but we can't always be with her."
"We're fucking good at this, Taylor. We all cover each other's weak spots. All for one, you know." Newter thrusts his fist in the air, and Skeeter echoes the gesture without looking away from the TV.
"What could any of us do to Silhouette? Dauntless? Kelvin?" I ask. Brutes who could move fast enough that I'd never catch them in my domain, or ones whose breaker state seems so inviolable the trick I pulled on Masada might not even work.
Newter shrugs and gives me a winsome smile in lieu of an actual answer, it's clearly not weighing on him.
I need to do something.
"I'm going to do a delivery shift", I announce, "When she gets back, tell Mel I took the small van."
Newter nods, but Skeeter slowly turns to look in my direction, and I can trace his thoughts swiftly moving. He opens his mouth—closes it—as if words were on the tip of his tongue.
He finally speaks, enunciating formally as if quoting scripture, "At the gates of paradise, the accounting of deeds depend upon intention, but a deed in the service of truth is still a weighty thing alone. A sword might cut a thousand men and still be beaten into a plow."
"What?" Newter asks, and I tilt my head in a silent echo.
"The 'how' does matter, but the 'what' matters, too." Skeeter's obliqueness confuses Newter further, but I understand what he meant.
He'd given a blessing of sorts.
"Thanks, Skeeter, I'll be away for a few hours," I say, and vanish from the room.
-=≡SƧ≡=-
I toss the polo shirt and cap at Mimi hard enough to wake her up.
"Wha?" She moans. Her sleeping pattern was all over the place, with long naps and trouble rousing, but she'd wake up as I drove.
"Please put these on, we're going out."
She eyes me listlessly as she holds the clothes. I'm wearing the same red polo with white and pink patches and the restaurant's logo, and my hair is constrained beneath a similar cap. My top is several sizes too large, giving my plumes room to bunch at the back, but I found something that should fit better for her.
Her thoughts start to speed up, stirring in their despondent waves. "Aren't you going to turn around?"
"Mimi, I can count your gallstones through a lead plate, it's not going to make any difference," I say, copying Mel's flat style. Not a boast but an inescapable fact. "You should eat more fruits and vegetables, and regularize your meal times."
"Hard when you're homeless," she replies with a similar lack of emotion while changing.
"True," I acknowledge, "I learned what stale bread does to your gut myself."
She follows me out of her prison cell into the spare kitchen, and I point to the five white paper bags I'd stacked on the countertop. "Help me carry these out to the van, the small one is your dinner."
"We're actually delivering food?" Mimi asks with muted surprise.
"Yes. We have other errands, but this establishes the cover story—why the van will be crisscrossing the city."
"Huh." Memories turn and spin in her skull. The Crew operations must be quite different from the Teeth's, I suppose.
She picks up a bag under each arm. Long-term memories fade into the background, and she concentrates on recent events. "How long?"
"Five days on the street, then nine squatting, then Faultline took me in."
Not much compared to her years and months, but she doesn't seem dismissive. Going outside in the warmer air of the evening had more impact, and she blinked rapidly in the light breeze. We're still deep in the heart of my domain, and I keep every mote of flame carefully hidden from her.
"Houses all around," she notes, though I don't understand her meaning. I don't ask though, I need to project a brisk inexorable competence; that she can be safe but that crossing me is inconceivable.
Mimi stops by the van's passenger door, startled for the first time in our interaction. She reaches up to touch the line of cigarette burns that runs from her eye to her chin. Or where they should be before I hid them. I am best at the small stuff, an onlooker would need to look very closely to realize something was off. I'd hidden a few skin blemishes as well to even things out, and now she'd probably be pretty if it weren't for the bags under her eyes.
"They're still there," I inform her, "I can make it so you can still see them even if others can't if that's what you want."
"Was hoping someone would recognize me, have this all blow up in your face." She says flatly.
I dismiss the pettiness. "I doubt it would have mattered. You're not a household name outside of Pennsylvania."
There was a small twitch in her mind, subtle, but it was there.
"Would you like to be? Famous? Notorious?" I guess.
"No." Her voice is small, as Elle's is sometimes.
"Faultline gets the notoriety, we are just hangers-on," I reassure her, "and if you want to go unseen I can make it happen."
"Your hidden pet." She mimes a tiny animal with one hand, hiding in the burrow of her other hand.
"A member of the team, but with safeguards in place," I carefully insist. "We all have safeguards as befitting our situations."
She hesitates, the passenger side door half-open. "What does Elle think of that?"
I take a moment to distill Elle's objections in my head. "She's pessimistic, but not ruling it out. She's worried about you."
Mimi looks at me with that blank stare, and I can't tell what she's feeling. She gets in and closes the van door with a hard slam.
Mel has had the small Ford van for years. With just enough room for Gregor and Newter to hide in the back; it is barely bigger than a car and has an engine to match. Nonetheless, I hesitate before starting the engine, coiling and recoiling my domain around Mimi's power, nervousness pushing out my plumes until sitting in the car seat is uncomfortable. I had to be ready, had to do this right.
I turn the ignition.
A spark lights and Mimi's power reaches out for the combustion. My domain rides with it, a transdimensional remora, snuffing out her perception as soon as the connection is made. Another spark is hidden, then a third and a fourth, and then the engine cycles back to the first chamber again. The effort fades to the background in my mind, as easy as breathing, but I'll give it a minute or so to be sure.
Based on Mel's back-of-the-envelope calculations about my power—made so long ago in that lakehouse in Ohio—there definitely would come a rate of spreading flame I wouldn't be able to keep up with, wouldn't be able to keep Mimi quenched. But normal life in the city should be far below that.
I'll avoid heavy traffic. Just to be safe.
Mimi taps on the dashboard, using all four fingers to sound out a tune.
I get the message and pull the car out onto the nearly deserted road. Sunday evening in the suburbs is always dead. It's only ten minutes to our first stop, and we sit in silence. I can't make conversation even if I had wanted to, it would break the impression of inexorable competence I am trying to project. Mimi doesn't seem to mind the quiet.
We pull up on one of the streets heading uphill to the university. The houses are big here, but more rundown than elsewhere in Jenness, and mainly rented out to flocks of students. I pass one of the delivery bags to Mimi and pick up two myself.
"Come on," I say.
She compiles, her gaze flicking back and forth as if searching for the trick.
The young guy who answers the door reeks of beer, but tracing the backroom of the house shows a table strewn with both cans and coursework, his friends furrowing their brows as they burn the midnight oil. At least they're trying, even if alcohol makes for a bad study aid.
"Delivery from the Pink Bamboo," I say, making the effort to be chirpy and handing over the bags, "Got enough to feed a football team in there! Are you guys having a fun evening?"
Mimi's gaze narrows on my back, hopefully put off kilter by the change in persona. Another of Mel's little plays, to leave the target questioning what they assumed about you. I step aside to let the half-a-head shorter Mimi give him the bag she's holding.
"Oh," he blinks, "sorry I've just got the cash for one tip."
"Don't worry about it," I pluck the bills from his outstretched hand, and pass them to Mimi, "New start, showing them the ropes, it's her very first tip!"
She crumples the cash in her hand, and speaks in that dry and lifeless voice, "This is the best thing that's happened to me in weeks."
He closes the door in such a hurry he doesn't even do the usual male thing of checking out anything vaguely women-shaped as we turn to leave.
Back in the van, I risk a comment. "Dramatic irony is usually Skeeter's bit. You might have to take turns."
I regret the awkwardness immediately. Teasing and banter are things I hate, so what possessed me to be so stupid as to attempt them?
"What is this?" She asks, concern finally breaking through some of that dead ice.
"A life, Mimi," I answer simply, "now eat your food before it gets cold."
"For fuck's sake you haven't—"
"It's Taylor." I push on those old memories that activate when she talks about Elle. Giving up my name felt strange; objectively nothing had changed, but there was a sense of exposure that was uncomfortable. I'd not told Victoria my real name in all our interactions, and our loose alliance was a manifestly safer relationship.
"I meant your cape name," she mumbles under her breath, too quiet for a normal person to hear.
I clench my teeth at my idiocy, but I can recover from this. "My cape name is Swallowtail or 'Tails' on the job. I know—Elle said—you don't like the name the PRT gave you, so being on cape name terms felt unequal."
She stares at me, disbelievingly.
I continue, "this is an opportunity to make a new cape name. The only way to displace a bad name is with a new one. It's like theater, the characters will always be called something."
She doesn't answer, choosing to change the subject by looking in the bag of food I'd gotten for her. I start driving, the second and last delivery is another student's house, this time at the very crest of the hill and I go up to the door on my own.
In the van Mimi has finished her meal and is staring out the windscreen. It is a beautiful view, the clear summer night lays out Downtown in front of us; a line of skyscrapers with thousand of windows like pale stars, bracketed on the south by the amber and red ribbon of the interstate and in the north by the twinkling yellows of the Boardwalk and the wine-dark sea. We couldn't see the streets themselves from this angle, but the glow leaks up the dark buildings like they are coals being gently warmed.
"It's good to pause and get perspective sometimes," I say as I get back in the van, "one of the advantages of having a settled business, a stable team."
I must finally be getting through as Mimi rolls her eyes. "Put the radio on."
"Ah, sure," I answer, "what stations?"
"I don't know the local ones."
"Genre?"
"Not classical." The razor-sharp spiral of memories that comes with that is deep and vast, overlapping with many of the memories of Elle I'd mapped, and her heart rate shoots up. "Rock will do."
I turn the dial to 100.3FM. As the familiar guitars of Dad's favorite channel start to play, it's like an emotional punch to the gut. It's been months since our frantic final conversation and I've kept the ache under control, and done my job, but a host of memories shake loose in my mind.
I must have frozen in place. Mimi sounds dismissive as she talks, "Or whatever if you don't like it."
After getting myself under control, I quickly lie, "no, this is okay. Just surprised how good the signal is, growing up you only got this station in the North End and the Docks."
"Grew up poor? You're well-spoken." Mimi's observation is delivered in that same flat tone, but I need to watch myself. Just like Elle, she's more observant than she shows.
"Mom was an academic, pushed back on the dockworker vulgate I got from Dad." I'm careful to not give too much detail – which is an odd thing to think. What family do I have left to lose—
"My dad was blue-collar too, preferred other things to words." The tempest in her brain makes the reaction to classical movement look like a light summer's rain. I don't commit it to memory. Some things are too dangerous to emphasize, but my mind hovers over the proverbial button to take away her senses.
As I try to think of some words to quell the storm, a new song came on the radio, an uplifting bit of prog rock. Mimi hums a few bars to a different song, one I half-recognize from Mel's collection, and the chaos fades from sight. It's a worrying hair-trigger.
"Driver should choose the tunes," she adds, surprisingly insistent for her.
"No good Brockton stations for trance or synth." Back in the Palanquin, I'd found the sawtooth shape of the soundwaves pleasing when they passed through my scan, but vocals ruined the clarity of it, gave it secrets I had to decipher, added whispered rumors I might be missing.
Mimi is staring at me for some reason. I reassure her as we drive off, "This is fine, really."
As we go down the west side of the hill, I don't want to miss using this moment of communication to move forward. I have my plan, but I still hesitate twice before going through with it.
I let Mimi sense the engine's combustion. It's beautiful in a way, when she has full feedback, those conduits from elsewhere pulse and flow with liquid life rather than sitting stagnant, drifting and leading them like the brush of a whimsical artist. Mimi's power is flame, not some conceptually loose 'fire' or bright energy, but the cascade of combusting molecules itself. I can trace her pushing stuff into the flame, tiny nuggets of matter that internet searches had left me convinced are ions, radicals, and plasmas. It made the teleporting suddenly click into place as part of the power set; she was already moving material down those conduits, so why not herself? Obvious too why it was so easy for my domain to move with hers when I struggle without matter and information to root in.
Mimi sighs like someone having their first beer after a long day. I keep my eye on the engine temperature gauge—wary of it creeping up—but don't say anything.
"Letting the inmate get their exercise, huh?" She says, the bitterness in her voice more emotion than she's shown the whole evening so far.
I don't reply.
"If I'm warming up, let me see something else."
"Where?"
She points at her cupped palm.
"Okay." I keep my eyes on the road but trace her mind very carefully.
I feel the intent move through the conduits of her power a moment before it's actualized. It's not what I was expecting. In the hollow of that palm a spark flares, and spins into a rippling disc of dull orange, lighter cubes rise as darker lines sink. It's art, quickly carved with her mind and eye, a wondrous abstract miniature that flickers into a second of ephemeral life.
It's only when she snaps her hand closed to dispel the tiny construct of flame that I realize she had made a diorama of the city. The view from the top of the hill we'd just left, though I'm not sure why she would do such a thing. I commit the pattern of her feelings to memory all the same.
Asking would be a weakness though, a compliment would work better right now, especially since it's genuine. "Entrancing. You even got the cylinder of the Edwards building right."
She looks at me, and I feel her hot gaze, more animated than before. My reply is a casual shrug, as we turn at a junction, heading south towards Kittery.
"You see everything then?"
"Not everything." The thought rubs raw on my nerves, "but enough."
We get two miles down the road before she startles at something seen out the window. "What's that?"
"Kaiser's Tomb," I answer. In the darkness, the riven and tortured building had a way of surprising you. It wasn't lit up like the nearby apartment blocks, so it lurks until you hit the right angle so that a titanic metal blade would reflect a streetlight, and suddenly a giant is swinging a colossal scythe down on you. "A monument to callousness."
"Who?"
"Ran the Neo-Nazi Empire 88, they were a powerful gang, and their leftovers are still a problem. He's dead now." My dad killed him, I continue in my head, sadness and loss mixed with pride. Danny Hebert went to prison, his name cursed, while Maxwell Anders' reputation and legacy was pristine.
"Obviously." Her disinterest breaks my melodrama.
I slow down to look at the street and give my scan time to trace the nearby buildings. The Thorn nightclub is still open and doing a lively trade even if someone had defaced its walls with homophobic graffiti. I recognize one of the bouncers as having used to work at the Palanquin—a small betrayal but I shouldn't blame him if I can't recall his name. The tall chipboard barriers that keep people out of Kaiser's Tomb are encrusted with more spray paint; slogans and swastikas and declarations of a power undying.
There's more than the last time I'd been here.
"What's with this?" Mimi waves her hand at the dense iconography.
She gets the same explanation I'd given Elle when she'd asked; a rehash of my mother's lectures, half-remembered. "The Bay was too far north for either Great Migration; minorities were barely a few percentage points in the eighties. Made it easy for biker gangs and backwoods clans to talk a big game without having to do anything. They went deep on nazi symbolism without the substance that would bring down the law. Then the nineties brought capes, economic collapse, and mass refugees. The locals lashed out at the only one of those three that couldn't fight back, and Allfather took advantage of that swell, shaped it in his image."
My grip on Mel's detached and professional mien fades, and frustration bleeds into my voice;, "the bikers and clans gave him more footsoldiers than any other gang could even imagine, and the police and the rich welcomed anyone who would keep the fresh capes coming out of the refugee ghettos down. By the time Kaiser inherited the Empire was an institution. Entrenched."
Mimi is half-listening to me, and half to the radio, but she reacts to the vitriol in my voice. "Organizations look tough from the outside, but they're made of people. People are fragile."
I consider if she'd just made a threat, before my scan finds my goal, and I get back on task. A small underground space, with pieces of tinkertech stacked on shelves. The broken pieces of a bucket-shaped headpiece are in a plastic tub on the floor. This is the middle of Masada's patrol route, and I'd found one of his caches. He isn't a bond villain, there are no self-destruct or elaborate defenses, just a small space he'd presumably carved out with his tinker tools and filled up the access point the same way. It's the type of installation Mel could destroy in seconds, if she wasn't occupied cleaning up my mess.
A small pipe full of wires is the only connection to the outside world, running up to a concealed panel in an alleyway. I take the van up close, the driver's side only a foot from the wall, and wind down the window.
Now for the big test. I was pretty sure it would work, but I'd think of something else if it didn't.
"Mimi, please make a pea-sized flame," I request.
I'm surprised at how quickly she obliges, conjuring the tiny orb on her fingertip. My domain flows with it along the transdimensional back channels, like a tracer in x-rayed blood. I emphasize one point of the side of the pea in the stream of feedback Mimi's power sends to her brain.
"That feels weird," she breathily whispers.
"Follow it."
Again, she obliges, and a needle-thin line of amber flame ripples out, protected from errant gusts of wind by the enclosed vehicle. I lead further, and she follows, the flaming thread extending out the open window and into the cracks of Masada's concealed entrance. We snake it slowly down that wire-filled tube, and I hide the spluttering chemical fires it starts, keeping Mimi focused.
In a few minutes, the end is hanging in the empty space of Masada's room. I change what I'm emphasizing, implying a swelling sphere on the tip. Mimi gets it straight away, and a globe of flame battens on the thread like a monstrous fruit.
"Burst it please."
The room is engulfed in a small bonfire, merrily dancing beneath the earth. Masada's components are made of stern stuff, and only a few of them melt or degrade. I feel satisfaction at a plan working all the same.
"Hotter."
The flames turn white as Mimi's mix tilts towards plasma and the stacked protective plates finally melt and drip on the floor. That secret-spilling bastard's helmet crumples and caves in on itself. Destruction, deft and clean.
"That's enough."
Mimi doesn't stop.
The hidden room roils with flame as I see a wide smile beneath eyes that twinkle with life. Unfortunate. I hide the flames in the basement from her, and bereft of her umbilical of matter and energy they burn through the oxygen and expire in seconds. She slumps her shoulders like a listing hot air balloon, as I trace the hot pulse thumping in her brain and the thoughts shaking in her skull. I push on those guilty memories again, that fear of herself I find so familiar.
She breathes out, a long and low whistle. "So is that my lot then?"
I reach over to the glove box, and Mimi leans away from the risk of accidental touch as I retrieve my notebook. I look at the list of sites Mel and I had identified in Kittery, the Empire's heartland dense with safehouses and tiny splinter gangs. Yellow highlights mark those that Yeseria said bent the knee to the Elite, but there were still a dozen of tiny unaligned fragments keeping their head down, making the city worse in a thousand small cruelties.
I need more practice working with Mimi—need to build habits in both of us. As Mel would say, it's a training expense.
"Burning that room was to send a message. But nothing will piss off a hero more than doing his job better than he does."
-=≡SƧ≡=-
- Geez Theo, you sure you want to tangle with this ball of crazy?
- I'm pretty happy the Theo/Crew battle lets us see what Mimi is going through without having to do a PoV segment.
- Yes I named Madison's parents Austin and Helena and you can't stop me.
- Thanks to GreenTrash and Red Wolf for the beta read.
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